Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Yesterday I got the new issue of Bon Appetit. I flipped through it, dog-eared some of the pages with recipes I'd like to try. They have some good Passover ones I want to try. Thank goodness Passover is after we've moved into our new place. There was an article towards the end about cakes. I thought I wouldn't be terribly interested, since I haven't been feeling cakes lately, but oops. There was a picture of a chocolate cake. A dark, moist, chocolatey cake. It almost blends in with the black background it's set against. Check it out here (although on the website the cake is set against a blue background). I had already started making the cake before I even realized it was a coffee-chocolate cake. I didn't even read what it was called. I didn't care. I needed, needed, that dark chocolate cake. I'm glad I did. I do wish that I had halved the recipe, because this is a huge cake. I made it partly because I needed to, but partly because I'm having friends over for dinner and I like to make cakes when people are coming over.

Anyone live in the Philadelphia are and want to meet me for coffee and a big hunk of this cake? I don't think I should eat it all. And we certainly won't be eating it all tomorrow at dinner. Leave me a comment if you're interested.

Back to the cake. The finished product looked a bit different from the picture in the magazine. Yes, the cake was dark and rich and moist, just as I'd imagined, but my frosting was light. It was tan. By no stretch of the imagination was it dark, dark brown. Who cares, because it was delicious. I did change it a bit, since I only had one container of mascarpone, but I had to stop myself from eating the frosting by the spoonful. Alex, who's not a big dessert guy, went back for seconds. This is rare. Coffee-chocolate cake

Preheat oven to 325. Grease two 8" round pans (I guess you can use square) and lightly coat with rice flour. In a medium bowl, combine flour mix, xanthan gum, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt, and set aside. Beat butter until softened, then beat in the brown sugar until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla. Add dry ingredients, alternating with the milk in 3 additions, starting and ending with the milk. Mix only until combined, then add coffee and mix. Divide batter evenly between pans. Bake 35-40 minutes, rotating once. Let cakes cool, then remove from pans.

Combine cocoa powder and espresso in a small bowl. Heat 1 c cream gently until it just starts to boil, then pour over the cocoa. Stir the hot cream into the cocoa, then add the rest of the cream. Cool an hour or two. Add the mascarpone and mix until well combined, then beat on medium-high with a hand mixer or stand mixer (I love my Kitchenaid) until fairly stiff peaks form (don't overbeat!).

Spread a generous amount of frosting on one layer of cake. Chill 10 minutes, then place the second cake on top. Frost top and sides generously with frosting (you'll have a ton), then chill 10 more minutes. Slop the remaining frosting on top, spread around artistically (if you can, that's not totally my thing), and serve.

Katrina- email me and let me know the date- if it's not to close to the end of the month I'll try to bake you a cake! I love having people to bake for, it gives me more of an excuse to try out recipes since I don't have to eat everything myself!

Oh goodness that looks amazing! Question: Do you think you could sub a dark juice, like that pom there, for coffee in a cake recipe? I can't have coffee or tea right now and find a lot of cake recipes call for it.

Would substituting harm the set up do you think, or just alter the flavor?

Mia- the frosting is mousse-like. It is sweet, but you could cut back the sugar a bit.

Suz- I don't know what using Pom juice would do to the frosting, but you could leave the coffee out without harm. I think it would be fine to sub Pom juice in the cake for the coffee, or just leave it out and use 1/2 c more buttermilk.